Notions of the deaf and dumb before instruction : especially in regard to religious subjects

^ilms rrf t\t §eaf anir gimK

BY DR. PEET.

[Reprinted from the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, for October, 1855.]

NOTIONS OF THE DEAF AND DUMB BEFOKE INSTRUCTION,

ESPECIALLYaN KEGARD TO RELIGIOUS

SUBJECTS*

By Harvey P. Peet, LL. D., President of the New York Institution for the
Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb.

There are, we suppose, few reading men who have not
met with that curious anecdote, transmitted to us by Herod-
otus,! of the plan devised by an ancient king of Egypt
(Psammetichus) to ascertain what was the original language
of mankind, by causing two infants to be nurtured in such
strict seclusion that, no words being uttered in their hearing,
they could not learn a language in the usual mode, by imita-
tion, and, it was taken for granted, must return to the original

* This Article appeared in the Bibliotheca ISacia for July.

t Of this anecdote we have met .•ic\cral dift'erent veisioiis. The one here fol-
lowed, being apparently a literal tianslatioii of the original, the reader will find
in Blackwood's Magazine for April, 1845, p. 474. The Article to wliich it forms
the text, is a very curious one, on the absurd attempts of certain Dutch and Irish
antiquaries to deduce the ancient universality of their respective languages from
the accidental coincidence of one or two words, and forced and far-fetched analo-
gies of others. This word beck, happens to signify bread in Dutch, and becker, as
with us, a baker. From this slight foundation one Goropius, in the .sixteenth cen-
tury, brought out hiige folios to prove that the language of Phrygia was Dutch,
and hence that the latter was the primitive speecli of man.
1

2 Notions of the Deaf and

speech of man. The sagacious monarch seems to have
contented himself with obtaining a single word of the prim-
itive language. The word bee (or becco), which, after some
time, the children uttered when their attendant came in
(some moderns have plausibly argued that they expressed
hunger by calling for their foster-mother, a she-goat, by imi-
tating the bleating of which, a sound like bee may have
been produced), this word bee being on inquiry found to be
good Phrygian for bread, the Egyptians thenceforward,
waiving their own previous claim to be the most ancient
race of men, admitted the Phrygians to be the oldest of
nations ; and their language the primitive speech of man.

We can never read this story without believing that it was
part of the royal philosopher's design to ascertain also what
was the original religion of mankind, though, on account of
the failure of any satisfactory result on that point, this part
of the experiment was hushed up.

It seems to be some such feeling as that of the old Egyp-
tian king, that children, cut off from intellectual commerce
with mankind, must have an instinctive language, and innate
ideas of religion, that is at the bottom of the curiosity so
generally felt, and the more strongly among the most intel-
lectual and reflecting, to know what ideas the deaf and dumb
have before instruction, and in what mode they express their
ideas ; for in the case of each child who comes into the world
without the sense of hearing, and is brought up among per-
sons unaccustomed to communicate by gestures, the experi-
ment of Psammetichus, as every intelligent reader will per-
ceive, both in regard to language and religion, is tried over
again. It is to be hoped the greater light we now possess
will enable us to draw more careful and rational conclusions
than he arrived at.

Many, perhaps most, of the popular notions respecting the
intellectual and moral condition of the uneducated deaf and
dumb, are as wide of the truth as would be our conjectures
respecting the religion, language and institutions of the
inhabitants of another planet. On the former subject, how-
ever, the erroneous notions that prevail have their founda-

Dumb before Instruction. 3

tion, not in the impossibility of acquiring correct informa-
tion, but in the want of observation and reflection. It is
natural to suppose that men and women of our own race,
brought up among us, and externally not different from our-
selves, must have not merely the elements of thoughts, feel-
ings, and faculties like our own, but these thoughts, feelings,
and faculties developed in the same manner that ours are.
And the imitative character of the deaf and dumb tends to
confirm this impression. When we see them act precisely
like those around them, it is difficult to realize that they do
not act from the same motives ; or that their thoughts are
not of a tissue similar to our own.

For instance, there are many who, if they should be intro-
duced to a deaf mute said to be suddenly and recently
restored to hearing, woiild consider it a matter of course that
he should be able at once to speak, and to understand what
is spoken to him. Yet a very little reflection would teach
them that, as the power of speech is an acquisition of slow
growth, requiring the diligent use both of the faculty of
hearing and of the organs of speech for years ; the child or
man who, having been deaf from birth or early infancy,
should have his hearing restored, would, in respect to speech,
be, at best, in the condition of the infant who has not yet
begun to speak; and might as reasonably be expected to
understand Greek or Hebrew as his own mother's tongue.
Such unreflecting people haVe not yet attained even the
degree of intelligence that prompted the experiment of old
Psammetichus, much less the sagacity with which good
Duke Humphrey detected the impostor who, professing to
have been born blind, and to have been, just before, miracu-
lously restored to sight, yet named correctly colors he was
supposed never to have previously seen.* To parody the
duke's dictum :

Hearing restored may distinguish words ; but suddenly
To understand them is impossible.

Others, moved by the destitution of the ordinary means of

* Shakspeare's King Henry VI., Part II., Act II.

4 Notions of the Deaf and

religious instruction to which untaught deaf mutes are con-
demned, less irrationally, but, so far as all the facts now
known prove, quite as erroneously, suppose that, irl the case
of some of these unfortunate beings, who, from the mere
faculty of imitation,. attend public and private worship with
appar&nt enjoyment and devotion, God has made a special
revelation of himself which only the want of language pre-
vented the deaf mute from making known. Yet why should
we look for special revelations to deaf mutes, when they are
withheld from so many millions of heathens ?

As there are thousands of deaf-mute children yet unedu-
cated in our own country (to say nothing of other Christian
countries), besides, alas I hundreds who have been suffered
to outlive the hope of education, there are doubtless thou-
sands to whom, as parents, or relatives, or neighbors of un-
educated deaf mutes, or as pastors having such deaf mutes
in one or more families of their charge, the moral and reli-
gious state of these unfortunate beings is a subject of deep
and painful interest. Neither is their mere intellectual con-
dition without great interest to every inquirer into the struc-
ture of the human mind. The phenomena presented by the
mind in such circumstances of difficulty, and in great mea-
sure of isolation from the influence of other minds, furnish
an experimentum crucis to test the merits of any given theory
on certain important points in mental and moral philosophy.
Philanthropy, religion, and science are thus all interested on
the subject we propose to discuss.

To begin with language ; it is hardly necessary to say that
the phenomena presented by the deaf from birth, or early
infancy, without a recorded exception, seem at the first view
fatal to the theory that there is any spoken language instinct-
ive in man's mouth. These unfortunate children spontane-
ously utter rude cries indicative of their emotions ; but never
articulate words; or, at least, never sounds that can be
recognized as belonging to any known language of men ;
and this not from any defect or peculiarity in their organs of
speeah, for, with great and long continued labor, they may
be taught to articulate after a fashion ; but because the

Dumb before Instruction. 5

acquisition of vocal speech, easily and rapidly made in flex-
ible childhood, through the ear, becomes very difficult when
that organ ceases to guide the voice. The deaf mute car-
ries out the experiment of Fsammetichus to a result of
which the sage monarch probably never dreamed. Finding
himself unable- to learn the language of those around him,
he sets himself to work, at first from instinct, and then from
design, to make a language of his own, in his circumstances
necessarily a language addressed to the eye, a language of
motion and expression, that is, of gestures. This language
he endeavors to teach to those around him ; and greatly is
the shadow resting on his earlier years lightened, if he can
find companions ready in perception, gifted in mimicry, and
kind in heart, who will learn his language, aid him to de-
velop and improve it, and put it to such use as shall afford
him some share of social enjoyment : implying, of course, a
certain degree of moral and intellectual development.

It may not be aside from our purpose to venture a few
remarks on the much vexed question of the origin of lan-
guage ; for there can be no religion where there is no lan-
guage; and the condition of the uneducated deaf and dumb
presents phenomena that may aid in elucidating the origin
of the one as wel] as of the other.

That, as man had a beginning on the earth, so language
also had a beginning, is the starting point of the inquiry.
In the present stage of psychological science, we may assume
as a fact proved by all experience, that there can be no con-
siderable intellectual development without a language,
whether of words or of gestures. And the converse holds
equally good that there can be no language, worthy to be
called such, where there is not a certain degree of intellectual
development.

There are two rival hypotheses that have long exercised
the dialectical skill of philosophers and theologians. The
one party hold that the Creator made Adam a perfectly
developed man, implying of course the possession of a lan-
guage in copiousness, definiteness, expressiveness and har-
mony, adequate to his wants and capable of ministering to

6 Notions of the Deaf and

his enjoyments. The other party hold that the first man
came into the world in a state of literal infancy ; of course
without a language ; and that speech, like the arts and
sciences, has been gradually invented and improved from
feeble, if not accidental, beginnings. Between these two
extremes there are of course, various shades Cf opinion, but,
in our view, logical consistency requires the choice of one or
the other of the two theories we have stated.

To the unreflecting, speech seems as natural to man as
his erect form. The first steps of philosophical research,
however, show that men do not speak instinctively, but
acquire language through the ear. A child born without
hearing remains dumb; and a child even, losing hearing at
an early age, becomes nearly or quite dumb. Nor is this
owing merely, as was once supposed, to the sympathy
between the nerves of the organs of hearing and of speech,*
for there have been several instances of children born with
all their faculties, who, having been lost or abandoned in
deserts, are afterward found to have grown up possessed, per-
haps, of acute hearing, but without anything like human
speech.! Add that the total diversity that not only now
exists, but has existed from time immemorial, between the
languages spoken by neighboring races, ag the Hindus and
Chinese, is hardly, explicable on the theory of a common
origin of languages ; and a very fair case seems made out
for the hypothesis of the gradual invention of speech. The
arguments on the other side rest on deeper research and nicer
observation.

There are writers who, admitting that all men learned lan-

* It was a dogma of the ancient physicians, said to have come down from
Galen, that the conjunction of jieafness and dumbness in the same individuals,
was to be accounted for by " a common organic lesion of the lingual and auditory
nerves, arising as they do from a neighboring origin in the brain." — See the able
Article in the Edinburgh Review, Vol. LXI., p. 409.

t One of these cases was that of Peter, the Wild Boy, who was found in the
woods of Hanover in 1726, and taken to England, where vain attempts were
made to teach him language. He lived to the age of seventy. Another remarka-
ble case was that of a boy of twelve found in the forest of Aveyron in France
about the beginning of this century. He also was destitute of speech, and all
efforts to teach him failed.

Dumb before Instruction. 7

guage from their elders, meet the arguments just stated by
denying that ignorant savages, as men must have been with-
out language, could possibly invent speech. Says Rousseau :
" Speech could only have been instituted by a series of con-
ventions ; but how shall these conventions be established,
unless the parties are already in possession of a language
through which to communicate and mutually understand
each other?" The solution of the difficulty, in the view of
this class of writers, is found in referring the origin of each
primitive language to a direct interposition of Divine power.
Adam, they hold, learned a language ready formed, as his
descendants do ; except that in his case, the teachers were
superhuman beings. And, if any languages exist wholly and
radically distinct from the first language, a similar solution
can no doubt be found for the difficulty. A literal interpre-
tation of the Mosaic narrative concerning the confusion at
Babel, is one of the most obvious.

It is singular, say other writers, that these reasoners, who
hold that speech must have been divinely communicated to
man, because the previous possession of a language is neces-
sary to the invention of a language, should not perceive that
their argument is confuted by the very fact of their own pos-
session of speech. Every child who learns language from
his mother's lips, establishes with her the supposed series of
conventions, just as much as if two children should invent a
language between them. The natural language of gestures
is usually brought forward to solve this difficulty, for the ges-
tures, actions and looks of those who speak, present an
obvious and important aid both to a foreigner learning our
language orally, and to a child learning his mother's tongue.*

But those who make the language of gestures the princi-
pal original interpreter of speech, overlook the case of children
born blindj who learn speech as readily as those who see,
though their ideas of the meaning of many words must at
first necessarily be less clear and definite. To this we shall
again recur. We have here only to remark that the theory

* See the North American Review for April, 1834 ; Article on the Education
of the Deaf and Dumb.

8 Notions of the Deaf and

of the original Divine communication of speech is neither
philosophically necessary, nor even consonant with Scripture.
The Scripture narrative represents Adam as giving names to
all animals, not as learning them from any teacher whatever.
Setting aside the last-named theory, we have to choose
between the two first mentioned, each of which has the
authority of eminent names ; of men of intense reflection and
laborious research. Says William von Humboldt : " Speech
must be regarded as naturally inherent in man ; for it is
altogether inexplicable as a work of his understanding in its
simple consciousness. There could be no invention of lan-
guage unless its type already existed in the human under-
standing." So far we can readily agree with him. But
when the great philosopher adds : " Man is man only by
means of speech, but in order to invent speech he must be
already man," he must either mean by speech (as we often
mean by language,) any possible means of communicating
ideas, by signs whether audible or visible, or he must have
strangely overlooked the phenomena presented by the deaf
and dumb. The latter supposition is the most probable,
especially as Humboldt is a German ; for the Germans are
slow to admit that the language of gestures can supply, to
any considerable extent, the place of speech.

And yet, to those -who are conversant with the deaf and
dumb, and have studied their modes of thought and expres-
sion, nothing is clearer than that the language of gestures, in
the improved and expanded stage which it soon reaches
wherever a number of intelligent deaf mutes are collected
together, is sufficient, not merely for the communication of
all ideas whatever, that can be expressed by words ; but
also as an instrument of thought, and of moral and intellec-
tual development. Man can not be man without some mode
of communication with his fellows, sufficient not merely for
calling, warning, entreating, threatening, for which the
instinctive cries of many species of animals suffice, but also
for narrating, describing, questioning, answering, comparing,
reasoning. But there are multitudes of deaf mutes, capable
of all this, and well developed mentally and morally, who

Dumb before Instruction. 9

yet never heard and never uttered a word; and whose
knowledge of the conventional signs for words, furnished by
alphabetic language, was not a means of mental develop-
ment, but an accomplishment, necessary to intercourse with
those who hear and speak, which had to be slowly and labo-
riously acquired by explanation and translation in their own
language of gestures. Some cases we know in which the
mental and moral development has reached a point decidedly
beyond the average of unlettered speaking men, where yet
there is either a very slight knowledge of words, or even
none at all.

While, then, we are ready to admit that speech is " the
spontaneous result of man's organization, just as reason is,"*
we must add that the language of gestures is also a " spon-
taneous result of man's organization." A language of artic-
ulation and intonation wakes sympathetic chords in the ear
and brain ; a language of gesture and expression equally
speaks to the sympathies and synideas (if we may be allowed
to make a word.) Widely different as are the two langua-
ges in material, in structure, in the sense which they address,
and in the mode of internal consciousness by which their
signs are received, and by which they are used as the
machinery of thought and reasoning ; still, either alone, once
well developed, is sufficient for all the wants of the human
intellect. If speech is better adapted to generalization and
abstraction, and hence to reasoning; pantomime is superior
in graphic power, and sway over the passions. The man
whose language is a language of gestures, because by the
want of hearing he has been cut off from speech, is still, not
less than his brother who possesses speech, undeniably a
man.

This assertion may surprise those who recall the fearful
state of ignorance and degradation of which so many deaf
mutes are painful examples. But the cause of this ignorance
and degradation is not only the want of speech, but the want
also of an improved and developed language of gestures.

* W. C. Fowler's English Grammar, etc., p. 18.

2

10 Notions of the Deaf and

They were ignorant because those around them, either
through dullness, stiffness, or indolence, were disqualified to
aid them in developing their instinctive language of gestures
to the degree necessary to enable them to profit by the expe-
rience of others, and to share in social communion. They
were thus left without due exercise of the faculties in those
years when that exercise is most important ; and, above all,
were cut off" from all that mass of traditional knowledge of
which language is the great store-house.

The language of gestures is, indeed, obviously less conven-
ient than speech in many circumstances ; as, for instance, in
darkness, or with any other obstacle to vision ; or, which is
yet more important, in case of intent occupation of the eye
and hand, with work in hand, or game, or enemies in front.
Still, when we recollect that it is far more self-explanatory
than speech, as is proved by the fact that every wanderer,
cast among people of an unknown tongue, has instinctive
recourse to such skill in pantomime as he can command, we
are tempted to believe that the language of gestures, mixed,
of course, with instinctive cries, was the language of the first
men ; and that the instinctive cries, from being merely auxil-
iary, became the nucleus from which spoken languages were
slowly developed.

But, though the elements of the language of gestures, by
being far less variable, and by admitting of much more
obvious analogies with the visible forms and actions of
objects, are far more generally intelligible among men of
diverse speech, and hence seem more natural than the ele-
ments of any known, or even conceivable language of
words ; yet, on closer research, we shall find that speech is
the more natural and instinctive, as well as the more conven-
ient of two rival channels of thought and feeling. Children
readily and spontaneously . learn speech, because spoken
words cling with a natural cohesion to the memory ; because
they are prompted by a natural instinct to utter sounds ; in
short, because the acquisition of speech is a natural exercise
of organs and faculties given them to that end. The case
of blind children shows that gestures, however useful, are

Dumb before Instruction. 11

not necessary as interpreters of speech. And we have no
evidence that there ever existed any community of men, not
deprived of hearing, with whom speech was not in use at
least as early as gesticulation.

Even deaf children, not less than children who hear, give
natural and unconscious expression to their first feelings by
utterances. In them, as well as in others, the cry of pain
or of hunger precedes by months the gestures of anger or of
supplication. Their inability to hear the speech of others is
not the only cause of their becoming or remaining dumb.
Their inability to hear themselves — leaving them uncon-
scious of the sounds they utter — checks the natural overflow
of thought and feeling by the muscles of the larynx, and
turns it, except in moments of strong emotion, exclusively
to the other natural channel, that of gestures and expres-
sions of the eye and features.

The most remarkable instance on record of the instinctive
expression of ideas (not emotions) by utterances, is found in
the history of the blind deaf mute, Laura Bridgman. She
has been observed to utter a distinct sound ; in some cases
approaching a monosyllabic word, in others a clucking or
other inarticulate noise, for each of her acquaintances, and
even to change this uttered name (of which she can be con-
scious only by the muscular effort of producing it), when she
becomes aware of any considerable change in the individual
to whom it is applied.*

We are not aware that such a fact is recorded of any
deaf mute who can see, and hence it is, that we have before
remarked, that the phenomena observed in their case seem to
demolish the theory that any language of utterances, beyond
mere emotional cries, is instinctive in man's mouth. But
where deaf children are not objects of attention, these
sounds will not be remarked, and, where they are objects of
attention, the development of the visible language of ges-
tures, as we have already observed, cuts off the other natu-
ral channel for the overflow of thought.

* See Dr. Lieber's paper, On the Vocal Sounds of Laura Bridgman, published
in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge.

12 Notions of the Deaf and

Here we have doubtless the germ of that faculty by which,
fully developed in the first man, he became possessed of
spontaneous speech. In his infant descendants it is not
developed, because there is no room for its development.
Children who can not hear, are not conscious of its exist-
ence ; and children who hear, have enough to do in learning
words by imitation. The wild men who have been found in
forests, where they had grown up with no more language
than the wild beasts with whom they lived, and by some of
whom they were probably at first nursed, may seem at first
view an exception ; but these, so far as we recollect, were all
solitary ; and it is unnecessary to remind the reader that a
solitary child or man, having no use for language, far from
being likely to form one, is apt to lose one already pos-
sessed.*

There are writers who attempt to describe the gradual
formation of a language, beginning with mere instinctive
cries of emotion, thence passing to single words or names,
which, by the aid of the verb, are finally strung together in
sentences, and made more definite by terminations or by
particles. All this is ingenious ; but wholly unsupported by
any pertinent historical evidence. These writers affect to
find "vestiges" of the successive stages of development
through which they assume languages to have passed, in
the different structures of the language spoken by diii'erent
races of men.f But neither now, nor at any past time of
which we have any authentic record, do we find a nation or
tribe whose language has not passed through all the earlier
and more difficult processes of its supposed formation.
Tribes are yet found that, in respect to all other arts, and to
all knowledge, are in as primitive a state as any progressive

* " Sir Kenclm Digby, in hSs Treatise of Bodies, mentions a remarkable
instance of one John of Liege, who, from the apprehensions of danger from an
approaching enemy, took refuge in a forest and was lost, where he remained so
long that he lost the use of speech, and had to learn it again." — Vox Ocidis
Subjecta, p. 50.

t As a specimen of this sort of philosophizing, see a recent flippant and pre-
tentious work, entitled "Vestiges of Civilization."

Dumb before Instruction. 13

theorist can well dream of; but none whose language has
not already, and, so far as we have any means of judging,
ages since, passed far beyond the stage when all words were
names, and the connection supplied by gestures.

We do not deny the possibility that men may thus form
a language. On the contrary, we are inclined to believe
that, if the subjects of the old Egyptian king's experiment
had been kept in seclusion a few years longer, provided by
being left together, they could have a taste of the pleasures
and convenience of having a mode of communication, and
could mutually aid and encourage each other in the forma-
tion of language; they would have added other sounds,
more or less articulate, to the word bee; and thus Would
have gradually developed a dialect, imperfect no doubt, and
requiring the aid of natural gestures, but yet with a Consid-
erable number of sounds resembling words. It is not
improbable, as we may presently have occasion to show,
that there may be savage tribes whose languages were thus
formed. But if there be any languages thus formed, they
must have been rapidly and spontaneously developed pari
passu with the development of ideas in the first generation ;
for as the first ancestors of the tribe grew into rigid maturity
of age, their modes of thought and forms of language
would both crystallize into a determinate form, which, in
accordance to a universal law of nature, would be impressed
on the yet plastic minds of their children. The forms of the
language being thus determined by some idiosyncrasy of the
first progenitors, would henceforward remain nearly station-
ary for ages. Particular words change, assume new mean-
ings, or are forgotten; but the grammatical forms of a lan-
guage, unless broken by a mixture of races, and fused again
into a new dialect, either remain substantially the same for
ages, or, when they change, it is in a reverse manner to that
which is implied by the theory of the slow formation of lan-
guage during many generations. The changes of gram-
matical structure that history discloses are all changes from
a more complex to a more simple structure. Some of the
most ancient languages known possessed numerous inflec-

14 Notions of the Deaf and

tions both of nouns and verbs. The modern languages
derived from them have lost many of these inflections.
Other ancient languages, as the Chinese, possessed no such
inflections, and so have remained during thousands of years.
Facts like these indicate that the first language was an
inflected one, not a mere jargon of names without inflections
or syntax.*

This monosyllabic and non-inflected structure of the Chi-
nese language tempts us to conjecture, that this singular
nation and singular language may have had their origin
from a pair or more of children providentially cast out from
human society while they possessed as yet, if any speech,
but such a broken speech as is heard in the first efforts of
children. This may, indeed, seem a more probable conjec-
ture for the origin of a tribe of ignorant savages, than of a
people so renowned for early civilization. There is, how-
ever, another mode in which a new tribe, or even nation,
might take its origin ; a mode in which, while totally cut off
from all tradition either of the language or the historical lore
of the race whence it sprang, it might still preserve a certain
civilization and skill in the arts necessary to subsistence or
comfort.

In all ages of the world there have probably been deaf
mutes, for the words expressing this calamity are found in
the most ancient languages known. Sometimes too, as we
know, several deaf mutes are found in the same family or
neighborhood. They are generally quick in learning all the
arts that depend on the eye and hand; hunting, fishing,
agriculture, and the mechanic arts. Their sexual instincts
are often strong, and their passions violent. May we not
suppose that, in some very remote period, while the greater
part of the earth was yet an unpeopled waste, a pair of deaf

* The English has fewer inflections than the Anglo-Saxon ; the Italian, French,
and other languages of Southern Europe, than the Latin ; the present dialects of
India, than the Sanskrit. We are aware of no case in which a modem language
has more varied inflections than the ancient language or languages from which it
ia derived. The Sanskrit, one of the most ancient languages preserved hv writ-
ing, abounds in inflections beyond all others.

Dumb before Instruction. 15

mutes, rebelling against the restraint of some patriarchal
family dwelling on the very verge of human habitation, and
feeling their own ability to provide for themselves, may
have wandered off into the boundless uninhabited wilds
before them, there to found a new race .' A race so founded
would doubtless present many remarkable peculiarities.
While it might well possess a certain traditional skill in the
arts necessary to its mode of life, perhaps far beyond the
range of its inventive faculties; it would have lost all tradi-
tion of the true origin and early history of mankind ; and
would possess a language resembling no other language of
men ; a language, most probably, of few elements, and with-
out inflections, for the idioms of the dialect of gestures used
by the first pair would be apt to give such a character to it
in its first stage of formation. And, we may add, in antici-
pation of that part of our subject, that a people of such an
origin might very probably retain some rites of the external
worship of the race from which they sprang, while utterly
ignorant of its meaning and spirit.

We have presented these two hypotheses (of which we
suppose the latter to be quite new,) to show that it is quite
unnecessary to resort either to the older theory of the exis-
tence of the human race during generations in a savage or
rather pre-savage state, with only the faint rudiments of
speech, which developed diiferently in different tribes; or to
the newer and more attractive, but equally unscriptural
theory of a plurality of Adams and Eves placed in different
regions; in order to account for the widest diversities of lan-
guage (even if we suppose the confusion at Babel to have
only produced differences of dialect,) or, if any weight be
due to tradition on such a point, for the most contradictory
traditions, as to the origin of mankind.

From the theory which we have advanced, it will naturally
result that the language spoken by the first man, and
inherited by his immediate descendants, having its origin in
a fuller development of faculties, joined to more perfect flexi-
bility of the organs of speech, was probably a more perfect
and harmonious language than any that may since, by such

16 Notions of the Deaf and

accidents as we have supposed, have had an entirely inde-
pendent origin. And this prinaitive language we may easily
suppose the stem from which all the languages of the Cau-
casian race have branched ; thus accounting for the numer-
ous points of resemblance among the languages of that race.

For we find in our philosophy no reason to reject the
Scriptural doctrine, that the first man was the type of the
highest perfection, mental and physical, of his descend-
ants. Races of men sometimes improve, but, in other
circumstances, they as notoriously degenerate. It is at
least full as philosophical to suppose the inferior races
of men to have been degenerate descendants from the
superior races, as to suppose the converse. And those
who hold that the Hottentot has gradually improved by
migration to more favorable climates, till, passing through
the intermediate grades, his remote descendants came upon
the stage of life as a tribe of Caucasians, to be consistent,
ought also to hold that the Hottentot himself was an
improved offshoot from the Chimpanzee, and the latter from
some remarkable baboon or monkey.

And such, as every reader will recollect, is the precise
ground taken by that school of philosophers, represented by
Lord Monboddo in the last century, and by the author of the
noted work "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation"
in this, who seem possessed with a monomania of account-
ing for all phenomena without reference to a First Cause,
wherever, by any effort of speculative ingenuity, the necessity
for such a reference may seem to be removed a step further
back. Their theory of the origin of man and of language,
however insufficient it may be, has at least the merit of con-
sistency. They do not suppose the first man to have been
created and left by his Creator in a state of bodily maturity
and intellectual infancy, or rather imbecility. According to
their views the first man, the last of a long series of succes-
sive developments from the first germ of life (which itself, in
the view of some, was merely a product of a new chemical
combination,) this first man, the lineal descendant of the
infusoria, through the fishes, the frogs, and the monkeys, had

Dumb before Instruction. 17

of course an infancy, as the orang-outang or chimpanzee,
from whom he was born, had before him. An infant with
orang-outang parents can not well be supposed to have any
other language than the howling, chattering and mowing of
his own father and mother; and marvellous as is the forma-
tion, in whatever number of generations, of a human lan-
guage from such an origin, it is no greater marvel than the
birth of a rational man from an irrational ape. The diffi-
culty with this theory is, that in seeking to escape the neces-
sity of admitting a direct interposition of Divine power, it
supposes a series of metamorphoses, each a greater miracle,
as measured by human experience since the record of history
began, than is implied in the most literal interpretation of the
Mosaic account of the creation.

According to all human experience, every oak sprung from
an acorn ; nor has an acorn been ever known to produce a
tree of a different species from its parent oak. But geology
teaches that there was a time when the earth was unfit for
the growth of oaks. There must have been a first oak. Ts
it easier to conceive this first oak, in direct contradiction to
all experience, to have sprung from the seed of some less
perfect plant, than to conceive it, not in contradiction to, but
simply in addition to, because beyond the reach of experi-
ence, as springing from the ground at the will of the
Creator ?

If it be granted that the first pair were created with adult
bodies ; possessed at once of that stature, muscular develop-
ment, and power over their motions, which, in the case of
each of their descendants, are only acquired by the slow
growth and slowly treasured experience of long years of
infancy and childhood ; it can hardly be denied to be equally
probable that they were created also with adult minds, that
is, mental faculties, not, as in the case of infants, merely in
the germ, but well developed, and possessed of an instinctive
power of speech, which, in fact, is hardly a greater marvel
than an instinctive power of walking to the nearest tree,
and plucking fruit to satisfy the first call of hunger. Milton
3

18 Notions of the Deaf and

makes Adam say, describing his first awakening into con-
scious life :

" Straight towai'ds Heaven my wonderiug eyes 1 turned,

And gazed awhile the ample sky, till raised

r>y quick instinctive motion vp I sprung,

As thitherward endeavoring, and ■upright

Stood on my feet ; about me round I saw

Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains.

And liquid lapse of murmuring streams ; by these,

Creatures that lived, and moved, and walked, or flew :

Birds on the branches warbling ; all things smiled ;

With fragrance and with joy my heart o'erflowed.

Myself I then perused, and limb by limb

Surveyed, and sometimes tcent, and sometimes ran

With supple joints, as lively vigor led ;

But who I was, or where, or from what cause.

Knew not ; to speak I tried, and fwthtoitli spake :

Aly tongue obeyed, and readily could name

Whate'er I saw."

And tliirf line description contains philosophy as well as
poetry. The Creator can dispense, if it so please him, with
the long infancy of the mind, as well as with that of the body.
There is nothing in itself more incredible in the representa-
tion of the first man, as instinctively naming whatever he
saw, than in his instinctively standing upright, and moving
over the earth at will. None of his descendants, for long
months after birth, can do either the first or the last. If a
human being should be nurtured from infancy up to adult
age without ever having been suffered to use his limbs, he
would be as utterly unable to stand and walk, as he would
be unable to speak, if from the loss of hearing or other cause,
he should grow up without having ever exercised his organs
of speech. And equally unable would he be to remember,
think, and reason, if he had been always deprived of all
opportunity of development and exercise of his intellectual
faculties.

It is no serious objection to this view of the case that the
possession of a language implies the possession of a consid-
erable store of ideas, which can only be acquired by the use

Dumb before Instruction. 19

of the external senses. The Scriptures inform us that Adam
named « every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air,"
when brought to him. Evidently the names came sponta-
neously to his tongue, as a natural result of the perfect organ-
ization and overflowing energy of his organs of speech. We
do not suppose that he ever used, or was conscious of pos-
sessing, a word for elephant, or lion, or tree, or bird, before he
saw, and seeing tried to name those objects; or that he
would have a word to express love, for instance, before he
had experienced that feeling, which, of course, implies the
perception of a beloved object.

The formation of a language of gestures by a deaf-mute
child presents phenomena which may serve to illustrate the
plastic power of a language in its vigorous and flexible
youth. A sprightly deaf-mute child, once accustomed to
have his pantomimic efforts received with kind interest, at
the first sight of an elephant or a lion, will give this new ani-
mal a fitting sign-name ; and, at the first perception of some
new feeling, or mental relation, will devise some suitable
mode of expressing it in pantomime. And his signs will be
intelligible to his companions, if of quick perceptions, and
accustorfted to his mode of communication, provided they
have seen the same objects, and experienced the same feel-
ings, though the particular combination of signs made use of
in the new case should be quite new to them. Can not we
imagine that the Creator should endow the first pair with a
power of speech as spontaneous, and to each other as self-
interpreting, as the pantomime of the deaf and dumb still is?
Is there any improbability in supposing that they were gifted
with, as they needed greater propensity to, and facility in
speech than is possessed by any of their descendants ?

Whatever differences of opinion may obtain on the origin
of language, there can be none that the possession or the
capacity of acquiring a language is one of the surest tests
of humanity. The want of a language in any adult being
of admitted human origin, where the senses concerned in
the use of language are not deficient, at once marks a low
grade of idiocy. Language furnishes the machinery of the

20 Notions of the Deaf and

intellect ; it is the multiplier of mental power, the treasury of
the accumulating experience and reflections of the whole
race, and hence is the great means of intellectual progress
for the human race, as well as for each individual man.
Another prerogative that distinguishes man from the most
sagacious of the mere animal creation, a prerogative yet
higher than language, and hardly less universal, is religion.
As there is no known tribe of men without an articulate lan-
guage, so there is hardly one without a religion, that is,
without traditions more or less distinct, and having more or
less sway through the conscience, on opinion and conduct ;
of a God and of a life beyond the grave.

This general consent of mankind on certain fundamental
points of religious belief, is accounted for, as we have seen
is the case with the general prevalence of articulate speech,
in two different ways. One class of philosophers and the-
ologians hold, that whatever knowledge on such points is
possessed by nations on whom the light of revelation has
not dawned, is derived through dim traditions, transmitted
from the remote patriarchal times. Another class regard the
crude notions of the heathen on religious subjects as the
spontaneous development of man's religious nature ; which
they hold, leads every man, or at least every community, at
a certain stage of mental and moral development, to recog-
nize a God in His works, and infer the soul's immortality
from the instinctive horror with which we recoil frorri the
idea of entire extinction of being.

The two theories have this in common, that they take for
granted that certain elements of religious belief are natural
to the human mind. If man were not so constituted that a
belief in a God and in a future life is accepted and clung to,
as consonant with his nature, religious traditions could never
keep such firm hold of the popular belief through countless
generations. But when we say that the vine reaches to and
twines round the stake, when presented to it, we do not
mean that the vine can make its own support, or without
painful and random trailings along the ground, reach a dis-
tant support ; it but accepts the nearest support offered to it.

Dumb before Instruction. 21

The human mind (with rare exceptions) instinctively accepts
and clings to the great truths embodied in the words, God
and Immortality : does it follow that these truths are so near
and open to human apprehension that the mind, in its vague
and unaided Teachings forth, can discover and grasp them ?

It is in this point of view that the inquiries into the no-
tions of the uninstructed deaf and dumb possess the greatest
interest. The results of these inquiries we now proceed to
give.

A series of questions as to their ideas before instruction
on religious and other analogous subjects, was recently pro-
posed to the members of the three most advanced classes in
the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. The
answers obtained were entirely their own, both in thoughts
and in language. We here present a sufficient number to
give a just idea of the whole.

Question 1. " Had you, before instruction, any idea of a
God, or of any being in the sky, more wise and powerful
than man ? Did you consider this being as benevolent and
just, or as powerful, cruel and awful?"

Answer. "Before instruction I had no conceptions with
reference to the character of God ; my grandmother and her
daughter endeavored to instruct me, and make me under-
stand that God was good and powerful, but I did not obtain
any clear idea. They taught me in signs that the eye of
God was so great that he could perceive with ease and
quickness. When I learned the letters of the alphabet with
one hand, a good lady pointed to some letters in a thin pam-
phlet, saying ' God is good,' but I did not clearly understand
what this meant until the dawn of education beamed upon
me."

" No, Sir, I had no idea of God."

" I thought that some one was in the sky. I feared that he
was powerful and wise, because he turned a grindstone, and
made it thunder and lighten." *

* This idea, though less poetical, is not more unphilosophical than the Ho-
meric notion of thunderbolts forged on "Vulcan's anvil.

22 Notions of the Deaf and

"Before I was instructed I had no idea of God, but I
thought that some one caused thunder and lightning over
the earth, which quaked."

" I had no idea of any being more wise and powerful than
man."

" I knew nothing of God. I had no idea of considering
his character."

" Yes, Sir, I had an idea of God before I came to school.
During my stay at home, my mother often told me that God
was good, but I had not much knowledge about him."

" Nothing of a being in the sky more powerful than man,
was known to me till my brother told me through gestures
that he was of greater strength and height than we, and put
the corpse of a wicked man to the bottom of a hollow place
and then burnt it ; and would take a dead person possessing
goodness into the sky. My feelings were divided between
fear of the being and determination to be good, so that I
might be taken by him to his abode in the sky. On my
mother's return home from a visit, she, being informed by
him that he had taught me of the being, confirmed the state-
ment."

" I had but a very imperfect idea of God originally im-
printed on my mind by my mother, who gave me, through
signs, the impression that he was entirely made of iron, by
pointing to the stove round which we were sitting one Sab-
bath morning in winter; and that he was enthroned on high,
by placing herself in an arm-chair and touching it and point-
ing upward, as if something resembling it were elevated
above the blue azure vault. As far as I can remember, I
thought that he was more powerful than man, and that he
would be highly offended and extremely angry should I ever
do anything disagreeable or offensive. After the most
intense reflection, I can hardly say whether I ever thought
he was benevolent and just or not."

" Before instruction, I never had any conception of God,
or of any being in the sky more wise and powerful than
man."

« I had, before being instructed, no idea of God, nor of

Dumb before Instruction. 23

any being more wise and powerful in the sky than a man in
the world, but I was taught in French by my nurse in Paris
that there was such a being called ' Dieu.' I considered the
being very cruel. While I was on the wharf at Beaufort
with my father, when quite a boy, we were waiting for the
coming of a steam-boat. It was an exceedingly' hot day
and we were out of patience. I told him that 'Dieu' was
very cruel."

" I have no recollection of having formed any idea that
there was a God, or any other being superior to man."

Extracts like the foregoing might be multiplied indefi-
nitely. Thousands of deaf mutes in Europe and America,
after becoming able to give an account of their early
thoughts, have been questioned as to their ideas of God ;
and their answers have been perfectly uniform in the point
that no one of them ever originated the idea of a Creator
and Governor of the world from his own unaided reflections.
What ideas some of them had attached to the word God,
pointed out to them in books, were derived from the imper-
fectly understood signs of their anxious friends, or from
pictures. In this way, many of the deaf and dumb acquired
the notion that there was a great and strong man in the sky,
a being to be feared rather than loved. Others received from
pictures the notion that the being, so often pointed to in the
sky, was a venerable old man, with a long beard and flow-
ing robes. For instance, Massieu, the celebrated pupil of
Sicard, gave the following account of the impressions he
received from the attempts of his parents to make known to
him the existence and the duty of worshiping God : *

" My father made me make prayers by signs, morning and
evening. I put myself on my knees ; I joined my hands
and moved my lips, in imitation of those who speak when
they pray to God."

" In my infancy I adored the heavens and not God; I did

* Those who may wish to read in full this interesting account of his own
infancy by Massieu, may refer to Sicard's " Theorie des Signes," to Bebian's
"Journal des Sourds-Muets et des Aveuglcs," (I. 333), or to the Appendix to
Akerly's "Elementary Exercises for the Deaf and Dumb," [New York, 1826].

24 Notions of the Deaf and

not see God, I saw the heaven (the sky). When I prayed
on my knees I thought of the heaven. 1 prayed in order to
make it descend by night upon the earth, to the end that the
vegetables which I had planted should grow, and that the
sick should be restored to health."

When asked if he gave a figure or form to this heaven,
Massieu replied : " My father had shown me a large statue
in a church in my country ; it represented an old man with
a long beard ; he held a globe in his hand ; T believed that
he dwelt beyond the sun." Massieu further relates that he
felt joy when his prayers were answered to his wishes; and,
on the contrary, was accustomed to threaten heaven with
angry gestures when he saw that hail destroyed the crops, or
his parents continued sick.

It should be understood that the failure of so many anx-
ious parents and relatives of uneducated mutes to impart to
these unfortunates any correct or consoling ideas on religious
subjects, is owing, not to any want of adaptation in the lan-
guage of gestures for the communication of such ideas, but
to their own want of skill in its use. As it exists in our
institutions, this language is fully adequate to the clear and
vivid expression of religious truths.*

Questions, 2. " Had you any idea that the world was
created ; that some wise and powerful being made plants
animals, men, and all things ? "

" Did you every try to reflect about the origin of the world
and its inhabitants ? "

Answers. " I had no idea that it was created by the word
of God, and never thought of the origin of the world."

" No, I had no idea about it. I did not think of the first
inhabitants of the world."

" I had no idea of the creation of the w^orld, and that
plants, animals, and all things, and men were made — No,
Sir."

* The rude and ancnltivated dialects of gestures generally serve only to recall
ideas ^with which both parties are already familiar. It requires an improved
dialect, and a master in its uses, to impart new ideas, especially if elevated and
intricate.

Dumb before Instruction. 25

" I did not know that it was created, but I felt as if it
existed. I thought that plants, animals, men, and all things
made themselves. No, I never endeavored to reflect about
the origin of the world and its inhabitants."

" It was my opinion that the sun created the world, and all
things, and animals, and the farmers caused the plants and
vegetables to grow up. I never tried to reflect about the
origin of the inhabitants."

" 1 can not recollect anything of what I thought with
regard to the manner in which the world, and plants, animals,
men, and all things were made. To the best of my recollec-
tion, I never tried to reflect about the-origin of the world and
its inhabitants."

" My ideas of the creation of the world, plants and other
things were enveloped in the darkness of ignorance, till my
dormant faculties were enlightened by the dawn of educa-
tion when I came into the New York Institution for the
Deaf and Dumb."

" I had no idea at all that the world was created, or that
some wise and powerful being made plants, animals, men,
and all things, as I thought they had ever been and would
ever be in existence, and that the world was an endless level
plain. It is impossible for me to assert whether I had
ever tried to reflect about the origin of the world and its
inhabitants."

" No, Sir ; I thought that some animals came from the
south to this country, where they staid till the winter, when
they flew away to the south, but some animals were born
here. I believed that some great things raised themselves.
I did not know that God made plants, but persons gathered
some in the fall and kept them till spring, when they planted
seeds in the earth. The seeds grew up by the influence of
the water which some women poured upon them. I tried to
think (about the origin of the world and its inhabitants) but
could not do it. I thought that the inhabitants came from
the south."

The writer of the last cited answer, it will be seen, was
the only one that "tried to think" about the origin of the
4

oe. Notions of the Deaf and

world and its inhabitants. It is worthy of remark that her
education did not begin till she had attained the age of fif-
teen, and she had thus mort- time before instruction to " try
to think," or to attempt to make original theories, than most
of the others whose answers are given above, who generally
came to school at eleven or twelve, or even earlier. With
(leaf-mute children, unless their friends are skilled in the lan-
guage of signs, the reflective powers usually develop much
more slowly than with children who hear; because the pos-
session of signs for ihose ideas that are beyond the sphere of
direct intuition, and the exercise of the faculties by inter-
course with other minds, are necessary to any considerable
development of those powers. The dialect which a deaf
mute, with the assistance of his lelations and playmates,
itivents to serve for necessary and simple communications, is
usually too meagre, imperfect, and often ambiguous, to favor
the development of the higher intellectual faculties. And if
these faculties are slowly and imperfectly developed, we
should rationally expect, what appears to be the fact, that
few, if any, of these unfortunate children seem ever to have
reflected on the origin of the universe, or on the necessity of
a First Cause for the phenomena of nature. As one of them
expresses it, they " thought it was natural" that the world
should be as it is. Some even fancied that those whom they
saw to be old, had ever been so, and that they themselves
would ever remain children. Those who had learned, bv
observation and testimony, the general law of progress from
infancy to old age, supposed, if they attempted to think on
the subject at all, that there had been an endless series of
generations. But probably there are very few uninstructed
deaf mute children often or twelve who have reached such a
point of intellectual development as even this idea implies.
At least, we do not recall more than one case in which a
deaf mute has professed to have had such an idea, and his
recollections did not seem to be clear.* It is much easier to

* " / bdkve I used to think that this -vvorUl stood itself always, and that the
people, too, were descended from generation to generation without origin." —
Twenty-second Report, American Asylum (1838,) p. 17.

Dumb before Instruction. 27

give to a deaf mute, by means of rude and imperfect signs,
the idea that there is some powerful being in the sky, than to
explain or even hint that this being made the world.* Hence
it is that very few deaf mutes have ever acquired, either from
their own reflections or from the imperfect signs of their
friends, any idea of the .creation of the world, or even of the
plants and animals on its surface. Nor need this surprise us
when we reflect that the most enlightened nations of
antiquity had not mastered this great idea. Ovid, writing in
the learned and polished time of Augustus, expressed the
popular belief of his time in the theory, that all things were
produced by the due union of heat and moisture, f

Many deaf mutes, however, whether from their own medi-
tations or from misunderstanding the signs of their friends,
have acquired child-like ideas respecting the causes of certain
natural phenomena ; such as rain, thunder, and the motions
of the heavenly bodies. Quite a number supposed that there
were men in the sky, who, at certain times, made themselves
busy in pouring down water and firing guns. The notions
of deaf mutes on such matters are often amusing enough,
but when not derived from a misconception of the signs of
their friends, % are evidently formed in a spirit of analogy,
which, indeed, has a great effect on the formation of their
language of gestures. Where there is a resemblance in
effects, they naturally suppose a resemblance in causes. An
English deaf-mute boy, § observing that he could raise quiti-
a strong wind with his mother's bellows, naturally concluded
that the wind that sometimes blew oft' his cap in the street
came from the mouth of a gigantic bellows. Neither does it

* " When I saw a largo stone, I asked a friend of mine liow it came. She
pointed to heaven, but I did not know what it meant." — lb. p. 14.
t Quippe ubi temperiem sumsere humorque calorque
Concipiunt ; et ab lii< oriuntur cuncta duobus.

Metamorjiliosfs, 1. 8.
X One girl, probably from misunderstanding the ^iJ;ll? of her friends, had imbi-
bed the idea that the priest made rain.

§ "A Voice from the Dumb," by W. Sleight of Brigliton. Other deaf mutes
say they fancied the wind was blown from the mouth of some unseen Ijeiiii;.
This notion may have been derived from picturen.

28 Notions of the Deaf and

seem that this belief was troubled by his inability to find the
operator or the location of this bellows, for to one whose
sphere of observation was so limited, and who could learn so
little of the world beyond it from the testimony of others, the
region beyond a circle of a few miles, was as wholly unknown,
and as open to the occupancy of imaginary giants and
engines, and other figments of the imagination, as was ever
the land of the Cimmerians to the Greeks, or the Fairy Land
to the popular belief of the Middle Ages. Similar to this
was the notion already given, of a girl who seems to have
imagined that the plants which spring up annually in the
fields and woods were, like those in her mother's garden,
planted and watered by " some women ; " an infantile con-
ception in which, however, may be traced the first germ of
the old Greek notions respecting nymphs and dryads.

A few more of these infantile attempts to account for the
phenomena of nature, may be acceptable to the reader. One
lad, struck with the similarity between flour falling in a mill,
and snow falling from the clouds, concluded that snow was
ground out of a mill in the sky. Others supposed that the
men with whom their imaginations, or their misconceptions
of the signs of their friends, had peopled the sky, brought up
water from the rivers, or from some large neighboring sound
or lake, and dashed it about from pails or tubs, through holes
in the heavenly vault. The more general belief, however,
seems to have been, that there was a great store of rain and
snow in the sky, a matter no more to be wondered at than
the abundance of earth and water below. Some supposed
thunder and lightning to be the discharges of guns or cannon
in the sky; a notion the converse of that well-known one of the
savages who, when they first met in battle a European armed
with a musket, believed they had encountered a God, armed
with thunder and lightning. Others say that they believed
lightning to be struck from the sky with iron bars, a fancy
rather more difficult to account for than the other, though
they had doubtless remarked the sparks struck by iron from
stone.

In answer to the question whether they had any idea how

Dumb before Instruction. 29

the suii, moon, and stars were upheld in the sky, the uniform
reply was that they had never thought about it. It seems as
natural to children that these bodies should keep their places
above us, as that the clouds or the sky itself should. One
lad had imagined a hole through the earth by which the sun
could find a passage back to the east. Others supposed
that after setting, he continued his journey round under the
northern horizon to the east again. There were even some
who supposed that a new sun rose every morning, and was
extinguished at night!

They all believed, of course, that the earth was flat. No
one will wonder at this, for there are still many people, pos-
sessed of the advantages of speech and hearing, who on this
point have not yielded the testimony of their eyes to the
demonstrations of science.

The stars, in the view of many, were candles or lamps,
lighted every evening for their own convenience by the
inhabitants of the sky ; a notion very natural to those who
had had opportunities of watching the regular lighting, at
night, of the street-lamps of a city. The moon was, to most
of those whose answers are before us, an object of greater
interest than any others of the heavenly bodies. One
imaginative girl fancied that she recognized in the moon the
pale but kind face of a deceased friend. Others thought
that she continually followed them and watched their
actions, moving some to " make saucy faces at her," and
others to run and hide themselves in the fear that she would
seize and cruelly treat them.* These were, probably, only
momentary fancies. The greater number looked on the
moon with pleasure, or at least without dread. Some say
they believed she loved them.

The answers of some of them, from their imperfect com-
mand of language, probably express more than they in-

* A pupil of the Hartford School wrote : " I had some faint idea that there
was one in the moon who looked on every one of us, and would take any one
that was angry or bad in some ways to his prison for life." — Twenty-second
Report, American Asylum, p. 14. Other deaf mutes have related similar fancies
of their early years.

30 Notions of the Deaf and

tended ; and, in several cases, their recollections of the ideas
they had before instruction may have become mixed up
with, or colored by, the ideas they have acquired since. It
is difficult to judge how much the girl meant who professes
to have had an opinion that "the sun created the world,"
and the difficulty is not diminished by the incoherency of
the different parts of her statement. She may have observed
that the sun caused the annual disappearance of snow and
return of animal and vegetable life.

The answers to the question : " Had you any idea of the
existence of the soul, as something distinct from the body,
and which might be separated from it ? " were so uniformly
in the negative, that it is unnecessary to quote more than
two or three, e. g., " No, Sir, I had no idea of the soul."
" I had not the least notion of the existence of the soul."
" I had no understanding of the existence of the soul ; but
now I understand that the soul exists in every person, and
when death seizes them the soul is immediately separated
from it" [the body]. The replies of pupils of the Ameri-
can Asylum to a similar question were to the same effect.
One of them will serve as a specimen of the whole. "I
had not any idea of my own soul nor of any spirit what-
ever."

It is remarkable that only one out of more than forty
whose statements are before us, seems to have imbibed any
of the popular superstitions respecting ghosts. If the mis-
fortune of the deaf and dumb prevents them from learning
much truth, it also protects them in most cases from receiv-
ing those early impressions of superstitious terror and folly
which it is often so difficult to get rid of in later life.

Question 8. " What were your thoughts and feelings on
the subject of death ? Did you know that you must your-
self die ? "

Answers. " I had terrible dreams about death, which
stimulated me to take some possible means to save my
life from being destroyed, by hiding myself under the
ground."

" I can not recollect that I thought I must die myself."

Dumb before Instruction. 31

" ] had always regarded death with painful terror and
superstition ; it seemed to me an unnatural and ghastly
thing, and a sort of punishment inflicted on bad human
beings. I did not know that I must die like others, nor that
all must die."

" I considered death as an unpleasant subject of reflec-
tion, and hated it from the bottom of my heart, but could
not help dreadful reflection on it whenever I saw man or
animal die. I knew it was the extinction of human, as well
as animal life, but had no idea that all men, animals and
vegetables must come to an end. When I saw men and
animals die, I had no feelings of sympathy toward them, as
I usually thought they were killed by taking things that
were destructive to life, and was so much afraid of it
[death] that I formed a resolution to defend myself against
its baleful effects, expecting never to be its victim in all my
life."

" My thoughts were that a person would never appear in
life after his death. I was afraid of death. I did not think
we must all die. I had an idea that I should possibly die."'

" I thought death awful and terrible, and my feelings on
it were great and painful. I guess that I had thought that
I myself must die."

" I often saw the old people failing till they died and were
buried in the grave, but I did not fear it, because I would not
die like them."

" I really knew that I should myself die, as my dear friend
Mrs. S. R. D. often told me by the signs that I should die,
and would be taken from the grave to be in a happy place
up where she pointed with her hand; but I knew nothing
about God and heaven."

" 1 did not know, but I cherished the hope that I was not
appointed to be caught by sickness or death. I did not
know that I myself must die."

" Yes, Sir, I thought that death was God and T knew that
I would die, but I was in a deeply fearful sorrowful manner
in which I thought I should never see my parents hereafter."

" Before I came to be educated, the subject of death

32 Notions of the Deaf and

affected my thoughts and feelings. I considered it to be the
most dangerous of all calamities, and sometimes dreaded it.
I generally thought that I should never die, but live for eter-
nity."

From these extracts, and similar ones might be indefi-
nitely multiplied, it will be seen that to most of the unedu-
cated deaf and dumb, death is truly the king of terrors.
Those who had not been taught the contrary by the signs of
their friends, cherished the belief that they could evade the
power of death, and live on forever. We have heard of a
lad who, having observed that people who died had taken
medicine, resolved to abstain from medicine, as well as other
hurtful things; and it might in some cases be well if those
who are not deaf and dumb were equally prudent.* Other
deaf mutes are recorded to have been unwilling to betake
themselves to their beds, when unwell, from having observed
that those sick persons who kept their beds generally died.

Other deaf-mute children, of less experience, or of a hap-
pier temperament, profess to have had, or at least to be able
to recollect, no thoughts or feelings on the subject of death.
Some state that all that troubled them at the sight of a
corpse, was the weeping of those around them.

To the question whether they were ever led by dreaming
of a deceased person to suppose that that person, though
dead and buried, yet lived, thought, and felt somewhere ;
the general reply was, that they recollected no such dreams.
A few recollected having dreamed of the death of friends
whom on awaking they found alive.

So far as we can learn from their statements, none of the
deaf and dumb have originated the idea of the existence of
the soul after death, in a state separate from the body ; and
it is only in rare cases that their friends have had skill in the
language of gestures to impart to them any correct notions

* A pupil of the Hartford School had formed tlie notion that "A doctor wished
to give poison to sick persons that they might die." The reader will recollect
that savage tribes have at times risen in fury and murdered missionaries, because
the sick to whom they had given medicine had died. A dreadful tragedy of this
kind was enacted in Oregon, in November, 1847.

Dumb before Instruction. 33

on that point. The attempts made for this end by many
anxious parents, have at most given the child-like idea that
the dead are taken from their graves bodily into the sky, or
are bodily thrown into a fire. We have seen that one lad
derived from his brother's signs the idea that the corpse of a
wicked person was burned in "a hollow place." Of a like
character were the early impressions of certain German
deaf-mutes, recorded by one of their number, O. F. Kruse of
Schleswig, that the bodies of the good remain uncor-
rupted in the grave, where they only slumber to be hereafter
awakened ; while those of the wicked rot and become the
prey of worms. It is easy to understand that children, who
have never seen a corpse except in the brief interval between
death and burial, may suppose that the dead only sleep in
'the grave. One of the pupils of the New York Institution
had been haunted by the terrible idea that, should she die
and be buried, she might awake in the grave, and would be
unable to call for help. Kruse describes the shock to his
feelings when he first, by seeing a skeleton, came to know
that the body returns to dust in the grave.

Question 10. " What did you think when you saw peo-
ple assemble at church every seventh day ? or when you
attended family prayer? "'

Answers. " I could not understand what it meant."

" I often thought why people assembled at church every
Sabbath-day, but I did not know what they did so " [i. e. for
what reason.] " I never attended family prayer, only prayer
meeting."

" I don't recollect." (Several answered to this effect.)

" I do not know what I thought." (This also was the
answer of several.)

" I often saw people assemble at church, but I did not
know what it meant."

" I did not think about the church before any one taught
me."

" I thought people were fond of attending on church, but
I did not know why they used to have family prayer."

" I thought that they loved to read the Bible, and to hear
Vol. VIII. 5

34 Notions of the Deaf and

their preacher speaking, but I did not understand why family
prayer was attended."

" I assure you that I had no thought of the people's assem-
blage at the church as if a stone were in my head."

" I thought that the people were in the church to worship
the clergyman of the highest dignity and splendor."

" I thought that the people assembled at the church with
great pleasure in studying various branches of knowledge,
and thought that the family played."

" I thought that there was a Sabbath in the heaven every
seventh day while the people were assembled at church,
because my mother pointed her fingers to the sky and held
up her hands on each side of her head when 1 refused to go
to church."

" It seemed strange to see the people assembled at church
on Sunday, and to see them read their prayer-books, but I
did not know to whom they prayed. I did not attend the
family prayer, but when I was quite a boy I used to go to a
Catholic church with my nurse, and saw the people ; but I
remember I was full of mischief." (This is the boy that told
his father that " Dieu " was very cruel.)

From the above extracts it will be seen, that most of the
deaf and dumb before instruction never had any ideas what-
ever of the object of public or private worship, some proba-
bly taking the weekly assemblage at church as being as
much a matter of course as any other periodical event; while
others, if they tried to think about it, only added it to the
long list of human actions which, in their darkened state,
were incomprehensible to them. One or two seem to have
made rather a shrewd guess at the secret motives of some
outward professors when they considered public worship as
a recreation, and family prayer as a play ; and the idea of
another, that people met to worship or to do honor to the
clergyman, might in some cases be warranted by the fact.
Only one bright lad seems to have connected anything like
religious ideas with public worship. His mother's signs gave
him the impression that men met on the seventh day on

Dumb before Instruction. 35

earth because the people in heaven, or in the sky, did the
same.

To the same purport as the foregoing, on all the points we
have considered, is the testimony of many other deaf-mutes
as well in Europe as in America. Nor have we ever heard
of any well authenticated case of a deaf-mute who gained
any correct ideas on religious subjects by his own unaided
powers of observation and reflection. There are some who,
having been able to hear and speak in childhood, have
retained, after becoming deaf, the knowledge of God, the
soul, and the'life to come, previously acquired; and, in very
rare cases, tolerably correct ideas on such subjects have been
imparted to an uneducated deaf child by a friend remarkably
expert in the language of gestures. But we feel authorized
by the evidence before us to deny that any deaf-mute has
given evidence of having any innate or self-originating ideas
of a Supreme Being to whom love and obedience were due ;
of a Creator, or a Superintending Providence, of spiritual
existences, or of a future state of rewards and punishments.
On this point we will quote the testimony of two or three
eminent teachers, out of many that might be cited. The
late excellent Thomas H. Gallaudet, the father of deaf-mute
instruction in America, thus expresses himself: " I do not
think it possible to produce the instance of a deaf-mute, from
birth, who, without instruction on the subject from some friend,
or at some institution for his benefit, has originated, from his
own reflections, the idea of a Creator and moral Governor of
the world, or who has formed any notions of the immateri-
ality and immortality of his own soul." *

Equally decided is the testimony of the Rev. W. W.
Turner, the present Principal of the American Asylum : " It
avails little to theorize on questions of this nature, or to show
by a process of reasoning, what the human mind can or can
not apprehend. The fact is simply this : The most intelli-
gent deaf-mutes, after a careful inquiry made at different
stages of their education, uniformly testify that they never

* This testimony of Messrs. Gallaudet, Turner and Hutton is cited from the
Twenty-second Report of the American Asylum.

36 Notions of the Deaf and

had any idea of a God, or of their own soul, previous to
instruction; that they either had never thought on the sub-
ject, or if they had, concluded that all things had ever been ;
and that death was the termination of existence,"

And Mr. A. B. Hutton, the estimable Principal of the Phil-
adelphia Institution, bears this testimony: "In the whole
course of my sixteen yeai-s' experience in the instruction of
deaf-mutes, I have never found any evidence for believing
that the deaf and dumb from birth, possessed before instruc-
tion any idea of a spiritual. Supreme Being, who created and
governs everything around up, the idea of God. I have
observed that many have crude notions of a being like a man
whom they conceived as dwelling in the sky, of great size,
age, and muscular power, who possessed cannon to thunder
with, and soldiers to flash powder for lightning, and lamps
for stars ; but even these conceptions they have referred to
pictures and the signs of their friends as their source."

The testimony of European teachers is not less decisive
than that of the Americans. As one of the most favorable
to the intellectual and moral capacity of the uninstructed
deaf and dumb, we will cite M. Berthier, himself a deaf-mute,
and for many years a distinguished professor in the, Institu-
tion of Paris. In one of his letters (as quoted by the Abb6
Montaigne,) he says : " It is possible that some deaf-mutes
may attribute certain effects, as storms, wind, and hail, to a
certain cause, and may figure to themselves one or more
extraordinary beings commanding the rain, the lightning,
and other natural phenomena ; but a deaf and dumb person,
without instruction, will never have a notion, even vague
and confused, of a superior existence, whom it is his duty to
love, revere, and obey, and to whom he must give an account
of his thoughts and of his actions." *

* The Abbe Montaigne, in his " Eecherches sur Ics Connoissances intellec-
tuelles des Sourds-Muets, consideres par rapport a 1' administration des Sacrc-
mens," cites the testimony of many eminent European teachers, who, so far from
supposing that the uninstructed deaf and dumb could have any idea of a Creator,
or of tlieir moral responsibility to a superior being, considered them as hardly
superior, intellectually and morally, to animals or to idiots. This judgment is
much too severe. Either those teachers must have expressed such opinions before

Dumb before Instruction. 37

111 opposition to all this mass of testimony, may be cited

they had made due inquiry into the condition of the uneducated deaf and dumb ;
or they must have taken, as a general rule, some exceptional cases of deaf-mutes
who had been neglected and thrust out of so«iety.

Btbian, who was intimately and thoroughly ac(iuainted with the language and
character of the deaf and dumb, says : " The greater number of the deaf and dumb
liad, already before insti-uction, the idea, I will not say of a first cause, a notion
too complicated for the feebleness of their intellect, but that of a sovereign being.
They all have, if not the idea, at least the sentiment, of good and evil." And wc
agree with him on both points, except tliat, as we have shown, their ideas of a
powerful being in the sky are in all cases, so far as we have any evidence, derived
from the signs of their friends.

The Abbe Montaigne, holding with Bonald, that " Languai;c is the necessary
instrument of evoiy intellectual operation, and the means of every moral exist-
ence," and that " Words are indispensable to moral ideas,'' naturally concludes
that uninstructed deaf-mutes should not be admitted to any of tlie sacraments,
except those (as baptism) which are ordinarily administered to infants ; and he
supports his views by the authorit}-, among other names eminent in the Catholic
church, of St. Augustine, who says (lib. III. contra Julianum, cap. IV.) of the
deaf from birth : " Quod vitium etiam ijjsam impedit fiilem ; nam surdus natus
litteras, quibus lectis fidem concipiat, discere non potest."

Though one of the most venerated of the fathers has thus pronounced faith
impossible to those wlio could neither hear nor read the word, yet many Catholic
priests, have endeavored to instruct deaf-mutes in the dogmas of their religion by
means of signs and pictures ; and have thought the results authorized their admis-
sion to the sacraments. In many cases, probably, they have deceived themselves,
as to the clearness with which their instructions were comprehended ; still their
benevolence is praiseworthy, and the possibility of commtinicating the most ele-
vated moral and religious ideas by means of the language of gestures will be
(luestioned only by those who are ignorant of the power of tliat language. Indeed,
if religious instruction must be defen-ed till it could be fully comprehended in
words alone, it would become hopeless for a large proportion of the deaf and dumb.
Many there are who leave our institutions with a very imperfect knowledge of
written language, but, notwithstanding, well insti-ucted in the leading truths of
religion.

The legitimate and indeed avowed conclusion from the Abbe's doctrines is,
that deaf-mutes who can not read and write, can have no moral sense, and must
be classed with infants and idiots, who being incapable of sin themselves, and
hence only bearing the taint of the original sin, which, according to the Romish
faith, baptism washes away, are saved without religious instruction, if they have
been baptized. In Italy, these conclusions have been carried out to a point whicli
probably our Abbe would not sanction ; some Italians having opposed the instruc-
tion of deaf-mutes on the ground that, if uninstructed, not being morally account-
able, their salvation was certain, whereas, if instructed, they would become morally
accountable, and might incur, by their own sins, damnation. Alas for the happi-
ness of mankind when superstition opposes.by such arguments the efforts of benevo-
lence to sweeten their bitter lot of ignorance and affliction !

38 Notions of the Deaf and

the merely speculative opinion of Degerando,* that, since the
deaf-mute possesses the like powers of observation and
reflection with other men, he is capable, time and opportu-
nity being granted to the development of his faculties, of
arriving at the conception 6^ " a supreme power, an intelli-
gence that has right to our gratitude," and of divining that
the worship he witnesses is offered to such a being ; and the
assertion of Dr. Howe, that his favorite blind and deaf-mute
pupil, Laura Bridgman, " alone and unguided sought God,
and found him in the Creator."

If we admit, for the argument's sake, the abstract possi-
bility that a deaf-mute may, by the independent exercise of
his own faculties, attain the conception of a Creator, to
whom gratitude and obedience are due ; still we must
observe that the intellectual development implied in such an
achievement of the reflective powers, is quite incredible,
unless we suppose the possession of a language, whether of
words or gestures ;t and the possession of a language neces-
sarily implies both a power and a long habit of communi-
cating with other minds. The deaf-mute who possesses the
intellectual ability to trace the Creator in his works, must,
therefore, possess a corresponding ability to converse with
his fellows, and, in a Christian land, unless we suppose a
general conspiracy to keep him in ignorance^ he can hardly
possess this ability without becoming acquainted with the
prevalent belief, long before he is able to work out a the-
ology for himself.

And, in spite of Dr. Howe's assertion, which, indeed, he
qualifies as " to the best of his knowledge and belief," J we

* De I'Education des Sourds-Muets de Naissance (Paris, 1827,) Tome I. pp.
92, 93.

' t Dr. Howe says (Report for 1843, p. 25) : " The intellect can not be developed
unless all the modifications of thought have some sign, by which they can be
recalled. Hence men ai-e compelled by a kind of inward force to form lan-
guages, and they do form them under all and every circumstance." We think,
however, that, with the uneducated deaf and dumb, the development of the intel-
lect is usually somewhat in advance of the ability to communicate with others ;
but by no means sufficiently so to affect the present argument,
t Report for 1850, p. 65.

Dumb before Instruction. 39

doubt if this was not, in a good measure, the case with
Laura Bridgman. Her eminent teacher wished in her case
to carry out a favorite theory, that the spontaneous develop-
ment of man's religious nature would lead the creature to a
correct knowledge of the Creator. She had been several
years under instruction, and had acquired a fair intellectual
development, and, for a deaf-mute, a very considerable com-
mand of language, before her teacher made any effort to
lead her thoughts to religious subjects. He then found that,
having attained an "acquaintance with the extent of human
creative power," she seemed conscious of " the necessity of
superhuman power for the explanation of a thousand daily
recurring phenomena." But is it not at least full as proba-
ble that she had unconsciously imbibed the idea of a Cre-
ator from her free communications, every day and almost
every hour of the day for years, with a whole school of intel-
ligent and well-taught blind girls? The statement that
Laura "by herself conceived the existence of God," first
appears, if we mistake not, in Dr. Howe's Report for 1845.*
In his Report for 1843, two years earlier, he says of Laura,
then in her fifth year of instruction: " The various attempts
which I have made during the year to lead her thoughts to
God, and spiritual affairs, have been, for the most part, forced
upon me by her questions, which I am sure were prompted
by expressions dropped carelessly by others ; such as God,
Heaven, Soul, etc., and about which she would afterwards
ask me."f In the interval between the writing of these two
statements, the Doctor had been absent more than a year in
Europe. Is not there here room to suppose that, between
zeal for a favorite theory, and just pride in the remarkable
powers of his pupil, he may have overlooked the possibility,
nay, the probability, of her having acquired, in familiar con-
versation, hints, at least, of truths which he supposed to be
discoveries of her unaided intellect?

However this may be, we hold that to expect that children
in general, deaf-mute or not, will, by their own unaided

* p. 29. t Report for 1843, p, 37.

40 Notions of the Deaf and

reflections, acquire correct ideas of God and immortality,
because some child of very uncommon mental power and
activity is supposed to have done so, is about as rational as
to expect that every boy who plays with a pair of compasses
may out of his own head construct thirty-two of the first
problems in Euclid, because Pascal is said to have done so.
Tell a bright youth that the three angles of a triangle are
equal to two right angles, or that in a right angled triangle
the square of the hypothenuse equals the sum of the squares
of the legs, and, with some previous training and prepara-
tion, he may be able to construct an original demonstration ;
but how many out of a thousand, or even a million, if
launched without a chart upon the sea of geometry, will
make the independent discovery of these propositions ?

Even to the mighty ones of our race, the Confuciuses, the
Zoroasters, the Platos, can hardly be conceded the ability,
unaided by direct revelation, to form just and ennobling
conceptions of the Most High, and of man's destiny. With
the great mass of mankind, their religious nature suffices to
enable them to receive, and understand, -and cling to a relig-
ion, but not unaided to make one ; at least, one that can be,
by the most liberal Christian, supposed acceptable to the
Creator; else how shall we account for the gross and un-
worthy conceptions of God prevalent not only among nearly
all rude tribes, but even among the most polished people of
antiquity? It may, indeed, be said that the reverence
imbibed in childhood for the faith of their fathers, prevented
them from developing a more rational belief, but this argu-
ment only removes the difficulty a step further back. And,
moreover, there are examples, rare it is true, of tribes not
wholly destitute of intellectual power, and having at least a
language far more precise and copious than is possessed by
most uneducated deaf-mutes, who yet seem as utterly desti-
tute of religious ideas as we have shown the latter to be.
The devoted missionary MoiFat testifies that, when he
preached the existence of God and the immortality of the
soul to the barbarous tribes of the Griquas and Bechuanas
in South Africa, he was heard with an amazement that

Dumb before Instruction. 41

found vent in bursts of deafening laughter. Such things
had never, even in a shadow of tradition, been heard of
among them. According to their views, death is nothing
less than annihilation, and they never for a moment allow
their thoughts to dwell on it.

Whatever difference of opinion may prevail as to the
ability of man to form for himself a religion not altogether
repugnant to reason, or in some essential points, to revela-
tion ; there is unfortunately no question as to his ability, and
his strong propensity too, to materialize rather than spiritual-
ize, the object of his worship ; to make his God a being of
terror and wrath rather than of love ; of partiality to him-
self, rather than of equal justice to all men ; and rather to
transplant to his hoped-for heaven the sensual joys of this
world than to look forward to spiritual or even intellectual
enjoyment in another life. Reasoning from these well-
known traits of humanity, we find it much easier to believe
that what dim glimpses of religious truth are found among
heathen tribes, are vestiges of a purer belief held by their
remote ancestors, than that any just and ennobling religious
conceptions have spontaneously been developed among such
tribes.

This subject has an important practical application. The
American instructors of the deaf and dumb have held it to
be their duty to begin the religious instruction of their pupils
at the earliest practicable stage of their education ; that is
to say, within the first few months or even weeks. Dr. Howe
considered it his duty to defer any instruction to Laura
Bridgman on such subjects as God and the Soul, to the fifth
year of her instruction, and then it was forced upon him by
her having picked up notions on such subjects in casual
conversations. His reasons we suppose were, that such
ideas should not be presented till the pupil has attained a
stage of intellectual development that will enable him fully
to comprehend them, and that he should even rather be led
to make such ideas his own by right of discovery, than to
have them presented as dogmas which he must accept.
Much of this difference of practice is to be ascribed to the

6

42 Notions of the Deaf and

difference of circumstances, and of plans of instruction. On
Dr. Howe's plan, perhaps the best which the peculiar case
he had to deal with admitted, he had no means of intellect-
ual intercourse with his pupil, and the pupil no means of
intellectual development except by a language of words, the
acquisition of which, for deaf mutes, is always slow and
laborious. On the system prevailing in our institutions for
the deaf and dumb, the teacher can, at a very early stage of
instruction, reach the understanding, the heart, and the con-
science of his pupil through the latter's own language of
pantomime. And when the deaf-mute pupil first finds him-
self in a community where every one talks his own lan-
guage, in an improved dialect, the development of his
hitherto dormant faculties makes as much progress in a few
months as it probably would in as many years were he
rigorously confined to words, written or spelled on his
fingers, as the signs of ideas, and the means of social
intercourse. This preference for signs, indeed, sometimes
causes our pupils to neglect and forget words ; still the use
of signs has great and positive advantages as a means (not
as some have strangely supposed, an end) of instruction.

It is this ability which, if our pupils do not bring to school
with them, they very soon acquire, to converse on intellec-
tual and moral subjects in the language of gestures, that
enables us to begin their religious instruction so early. The
teacher, in a numerous class of newly arrived deaf mutes, is
almost precisely in the condition of a missionary to some
tribe of heathens. He must first learn their language, and
after seek to make it better adapted to the communication
of spiritual ideas, but he need not and does not defer the
preaching of the Gospel till they can learn his own language.

Moreover, in a numerous class, early religious instruction
is necessary to moral control over the pupils. The unedu-
cated deaf and dumb, if they have no religious ideas, still
have a moral sense, a sense of right and wrong, as regards
the relations of property, and certain other important checks
on the animal propensities. But this moral sense, unsus-
tained by any feeling of accountability to an almighty, just,

Dumb before Instruction. -13

and omniscient God, is at best, weak and dim. And there
are not wanting those among them in whom the moral senti-
ments have been designedly perverted by vicious associates.
When the teacher has to deal with but one or two pupils,
and can guard against evil communications, watchfulness
and correct example may be sufficient to preserve or restore
moral purity, till the time comes when the teacher may think
his pupil intellectually ripe for the reception of doctrines that
may supply higher motives to virtue. But in the case of a
whole community, some of the members of which there is
reason to fear, may be already corrupt, there is an evident
necessity to invoke, at the earliest possible period, that con-
sciousness of God's all-seeing eye, and wholesome fear of
his sure, if slow, justice, by which men in general are
restrained from gross transgressions. And the facts and rea-
sonings presented in this Article tend to show that this plan,
not the less a sound one we conceive because sanctioned by
the practice of the wfise and pious for so many centuries, is,
also, in most cases, the sure one. Deaf mutes readily accept
religious truths offered to their yet unprejudiced belief. We
have no satisfactory evidence that any of them, even after
considerable mental culture, have, in their own vague seek-
ings for the causes of things and the future destiny of man,
attained unaided the truth. If we leave them uninstructed
on such points till the latter part of an ordinary course of
instruction, not a few may be taken from our care before that
important part of education is reached; and those who
remain to the end will be in danger of picking up, by read-
ing and conversation, false and absurd notions, which it may
be difficult afterward to eradicate.

Another cogent consideration, in favor of the early incul-
cation of religious truth, is found in its influence on the
development of character. We do not consider religion as
merely some higher science, to be reserved to the closing
years of education, — the capital which is to crown the
column. On the contrary, we hold to the good old belief,
that children should be brought up in the nurture and admo-
nition of the Lord ; that the precept of Moses is still applica-

44 Notions of the Deaf and Dumb before Instruction.

ble : " Command your children to observe to do all the words
of this law ; for it is not a vain thing for you, because it is
your life." * We can not leave our children ignorant of the
observances of public and private worship, and would not if
we could. And we must either leave them to suppose that
they are a mere recreation or a " play," or we must teach
them that these observances have a deep and solemn sig-
nificance.

History teaches us that the religion of a nation influences

the formation and development of the national character.

The nations of Europe and America are not Christian

because they are the most enlightened races of mankind, but

they are the most enlightened because they are Christian.

As with a race so with an individual. A pure and elevated

religious faith, either originally accepted through the evidence

of miracles, and from its own excellency, or impressed by

parental teaching in infancy, tends to purify and elevate the

individual as well as the national character. When the

Divine law is made the rule of conscience, the tone of private

and public morals is higher, and there are stronger safeguards

against secret transgressions than when the formation of the

moral character is left to the natural development of a happy

constitution of the moral sentiments. May the time come

when np child in the world, whether deaf-mute or not, shall

grow up without knowledge of his Creator.

* Dent. 32 : 46, 47.

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